Transistors, a basic component of analog and digital circuits, are commonly implemented using Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. That technology increasingly uses SOI (Silicon on Insulator) substrate for device scaling. Both lateral and vertical bipolar transistors have been implemented with this technology. Furthermore, vertical bipolar transistors on thin SOI substrate with partially or fully depleted collector have shown high Early Voltage, high breakdown voltage, and reduced collector-base capacitance.
However, due to the poor thermal conductivity of buried oxide (BOX) layers, the self heating in lateral SOI BJTs and vertical SOI BJTs, especially on thin SOI substrates, can significantly degrade the performance of those devices. For example, the SiGe bipolar transistors on SOI substrate suffer from thermal runaway (for fixed Vbe) or current collapse (for fixed I_b). The thinner the SOI is, and/or the thicker the BOX layer is, the worse these effects. Currently, trench technology is often used as device isolation, and the trenches tend to block the heat flow and make the self heating worse. In order to reduce the self-heating, better and or more heat conducting paths must be created within the device and/or among the devices on the same chip. Therefore, there is a need for an improved transistor structure that reduces self-heating.